A Victim of the Berkeley Violence Speaks

One of the people assaulted by leftists at Berkeley yesterday emailed this account to a friend, who forwarded it to me. My friend describes his correspondent as a moderate Republican who voted for Hillary Clinton:

I can’t say I agree with everything Milo says and,​ as most of you know, I ​am ​NOT​ a Trump supporter at all​, but I totally agree with Milo’s right to speak on campuses. I’m 62 and a lawyer for the last 34 years.

​So ​I thought it was high time to make a statement for free speech. I made a very elegant sign and went to the “protest.” I tried to keep my sign non-prov​o​cative with my genuine concern, the 1st Amendment, being the message. It said only “1st Amendment Protects All Speech…. Even Milo’s.”

I didn’t engage with folks except to show my sign. Some of the folks on the periphery liked my sign and were supportive. But as I started to walk into the crowd I was uncomfortably aware that I seemed to be the ONLY sign for allowing Milo to speak and Sproul Plaza was filled with Nazi/Fascist anti-Trump and anti-Milo stuff. I got about half-way through Sproul Plaza before I was attacked. I was TOTALLY BLINDSIDED by a painful punch to the nose and I immediatedly crumpled to the ground. (A very nice co-ed essentially apologized for her group and tried to help me up. Some other students looked shocked at what had happened. I tried to get them to point me to the perpetrator but they denied their personal involvement and said he’d disappeared into the crowd.)

I found my sign and tried to continue but they took it away from me again and destroyed it, beautiful as it was. Lots of folks were in disguising bandanas and ski masks so I’m guessing my perpetrator was one of the professional agitators, some of whom actuallly call themselves anarchists and dressed entirely in black, etc.!

​Of course, the World Communist Party was handing out flyers ​so I got one.

I was SO AMAZED that this was happening at UCB, of all places–the supposed home of the free speech movement!

My nose is still swollen but my breathing is normal again so I don’t think it is broken, just bruised.​

​While I’m truly worried about the country right now, I’m still a true believer in the 1st Amendment. Protect the 1st Amendment!